e a wire. "Then you are a
coward, Andrew Brewster," said she, hotly. "Talk about wishin' you
was dead. I 'ain't got time to die. You'd 'nough sight better go out
into the yard and split up some of that wood."

"I didn't mean to speak so, Fanny," said Andrew, "but sometimes I
get desperate, and I've been thinking of Ellen."

"Don't you suppose I have?" asked Fanny, angrily.

"Well, there's one thing about it; we won't stand in her way," said
Andrew.

"No, we won't," replied Fanny. "I'll go out washing first."

"She hasn't said anything?"

"No."

As time went on Ellen still said nothing. She had made a curious
compact for a young girl with her lover. She had stipulated that no
engagement was to exist, that she should be perfectly free--when she
said that she thought of Maud Hemingway, but she said it without a
tremor--and if years hence both were free and of the same mind they
might talk of it again.

Robert had rebelled strenuously. "You know this will shut me off
from seeing much of you," he said. "You know I told you how it will
be about my even talking much to you in the factory."

"Yes, I understand that now," replied Ellen, blushing; "and I
understand, too, that you cannot come to see me very often under
such circumstances without making talk."

"How often?" Robert asked, impetuously.

Ellen hesitated, her lip quivered a little, but her voice was firm.
"Not oftener than two or three times a year, I am afraid," said she.

"Great Scott!" cried Robert. Then he caught her in his arms again.
"Do you suppose I can stand that?" he whispered. "Ellen, I cannot
consent to this!"

"It is the only way," said she. She freed herself from him enough to
look into his eyes with a brave, fearless gaze of comradeship, which
somehow seemed to make her dearer than anything else.

"But to see you to speak to only two or three times a year!" groaned
Robert. "You are cruel, Ellen. You don't know how I love you."

"There isn't any other way," said Ellen. Then she looked up into his
face with a brave innocence of confession like a child. "It hurts
me, too," said she.

Robert had her in his arms, and was covering her face with kisses.
"You darling," he whispered. "It shall not be long. Something will
happen. We cannot live so. We will let it go so a little while, but
something will turn up. I shall have a more responsible place and a
larger salary, then--"

"Do you think I will let you?" asked Ellen, with a great blush.